The companies will showcase their first joint product offering—a blended ice/beverage station—at the National Restaurant Association show May 18–21, 2013

OREM, UT, May 9, 2013 – Blendtec®, a top manufacturer of high-end blenders, and Lancer®, a leading manufacturer of beverage dispensing systems, have entered into a joint-development agreement and will be showing a prototype of their first joint product offering at the National Restaurant Association (NRA) show this month.

The new platform is an automated station for making smoothies, frozen coffee drinks, and other beverages using refrigerated bag-in-box (BIB) ingredients and ice. This beverage station will give restaurants and other foodservice operators a fast, efficient, fully-contained system to expand their menus with popular smoothies and other cold beverages. When released, the beverage station will be commercially available for a unit price of under $9,000 with qualifying volumes.

“Smoothies are seeing tremendous growth in the beverage category and are becoming a mainstream offering in fast-food chains and restaurants,” said Reed Beus, CEO of Blendtec. “We’re excited to partner with Lancer to provide a complete solution that lets chains offer their guests high-quality fruit and dairy-based drinks.”

The new beverage station holds up to eight different refrigerated BIBs, which can include fruit purees, smoothie bases, coffee and dairy ingredients, and other ingredients. The unit features simple touch screen controls for selecting the flavor and size, and the cabinet contains refrigerated storage space for whipped cream and other add-in ingredients. Additionally, the beverage station has a built-in jar rinsing station, jar storage, and cup and lid dispensers.

“Efficiency and speed of service are priorities for many chains,” said Luis Alvarez, president of Lancer. “This blended ice/beverage station automates many of the traditionally manual processes involved in blending specialty drinks.”

Key Features

• Designed for up to 8 refrigerated BIBs
• Perfect for all-natural fruit purees, syrups, coffee, yogurt, and other ingredients
• Simple visual touch screen controls
• Customizable drinks with onboard programming
• Powerful 15-amp Blendtec® blender to handle tough blends and add-ins
• Built-in jar rinsing/drying station
• 25-pound insulated ice hopper
• Refrigerated storage for whipped cream and add-ins

Benefits

• Provides healthy, all-natural fruit and dairy-based beverages
• Fully contained system simplifies installation
• Increases speed of service
• Produces consistent results
• Reduces waste
• Easily customized to make new menu items
• Simple controls minimize user error
• No-tend operation allows multitasking
• Priced competitively